Track tunes up for Big East at Tyson

Both the men’s and women’s track and field teams competed at the Tyson Invitational this… Both the men’s and women’s track and field teams competed at the Tyson Invitational this weekend in Fayetteville, Ark., to tune up for the Big East Championships, and both came away with multiple top-20 finishers.

All-American hurdler Mike Wray turned in an 11th-place time of 7.99 seconds in the preliminaries of the 60-meter hurdles, then went on to improve his time in the finals with a 7.94-second, eighth-place finish.

Freshman runner Antony Hobwana recorded two top-20 marks in the men’s 60- and 200-meter dash events. In both contests, Hobwana turned in season-best times with a 6.82 finish in the 60-meter race and a 21.57 time in the 200-meter race. Both marks missed provisional qualifying times for the NCAA meet by mere fractions of a second.

Janessa Murphy, a junior, impressed in the championship section of the long jump, placing 12th.

Overall, Pitt coach Alonzo Webb was satisfied with the meet.

“It was a pretty high-quality meet, one of the top indoor meets of the season,” Webb said. “It’s a high-level meet, and I wanted to get the kids a feel for that high level like they’ll see at the Big East Championship.”

Webb noted impressive performances from his younger runners, namely Kaetlyn Brown in the 200 meters and Kari Hedderick in the 400 meters on the women’s side. Though they placed 50th and 47th, respectively, in their events, Webb said the sophomore runners competed at a higher level than expected. Otherwise, Webb said he got what he anticipated out of the race.

The team was more concerned with the meet serving as a tune-up event for the conference championships and competed this weekend to avoid a two-week layoff going into the indoor championships in New York City next weekend.

One runner who Webb thought underperformed was his star senior, Wray.

“I thought [his performance] was okay. We expected a lot more from him,” Webb said. “He’s behind as far as conditioning compared to last year. He hasn’t put a complete race together yet.”

Much of Wray’s underachieving can be attributed to a nagging hamstring injury he’s been nursing throughout the season. The hampering tendon damage has made his practice schedule inconsistent and has left him behind other runners. Webb, though, has been encouraged by Wray’s work ethic during rehab, saying Wray has been dedicating time in the early morning in the weight room to expedite the recovery process.

“I’m crossing my fingers that he’s turned the corner on that,” Webb said.

Webb also said Wray hasn’t complained about the injury since very early in the season and expects him to be ready to defend his conference title from last year, when he won the 60-meter hurdles in last year’s indoor championships.

“[Wray] is such a competitor,” Webb said. “His goal is to defend his title in the hurdles, and he’s zoned in on that.”

Wray could not be reached for comment.

The teams now turn their full attention to the indoor Big East Championships next weekend. And although Webb is looking forward to the meet, he’s unsure how his team will fair.

“You know, it’s strange. This is probably the only year since I’ve been here that it’s hard to get a read on [how we will perform],” Webb said. “I don’t see why we wouldn’t do well, but it’s strange that I can’t get a feel for where we’ll place at Big East. I think we’ll do well, but I can put a finger on it.”